I have DB poweramp I will put a SACD and a hybrid and see what happens.
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@tedsmith, is there a way I can verify the DSD rip?
I donāt want to be spreading falsehoods due to my excitement of my supposed discovery.
I love PS Audio and this forum and I donāt want to be doing anything bad here. 
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No. dbPoweramp has a lot of useful features but if it could rip SACDs everyone would know about it and the feature would be prominent, up front and central on their features page. AFAIK you need hacked hardware to rip SACDs. The DSD layer decryption key is encoded in the widths of the bits on the SACD and this isnāt something normal CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drives can interpret.
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I inserted a single-layer SACD my DVD reader could not read, but it could read a hybrid SACD (cd layer).
But you have to start with a .dsf file, no?
IOW, this is about converting .dsf into something, not ripping a .dsf layer with dBpoweramp.
Do I have this correct folks?
This is my understanding as well.
FWIW
But but but but I want to believe!!!
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Just play a St. Matthewās passion, fold your hands and refrein from touching any machine!
You may touch eggs and rabbits, though! 
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Womp wompā¦
So this morning I inserted your standard run of the mill CD and dB Poweramp gave me the choice to rip it at DSD. I pulled the trigger and it spat our a DSD64 DSF file.
So, my excitement was quite premature, unwarranted and wholey uneducated.
Butā¦this begs my next question and this forum is the best place for me to ask it.
Am I getting anything out of ripping DSD files from CDs other than bigger files? I mean, the recording I have on the CD isnāt going to change. I canāt imagine that DSD is adding anythingā¦or, in my uneducated way, am I missing something?
For example, I bought the Jerry Bruck version of Mahlerās 3rd conducted by Horenstein in DSD128. That is my first DSD purchase. The website clearly states that they recorded that performance from the original tapes in 24bit/192kHz as recording in DSD would have been too unwieldy to edit (which Paul has stated in his earlier Octave Records videos). Soā¦was there a benefit from going from 24bit/192kHz to DSD128 if it was just upsampled?
Letās here what you have to say and teach me some more, my forum family.
-Gil
Gil, with some exceptions, I typically prefer to acquire recorded music in the form it was captured (if digital). I probably would have bought that Mahler in 24/192 and passed on the DSD. Others may (and likely will) disagree, and there are some conversions that do sound better (SACD of Brothers In Arms comes to mind) - but a lot of times these are remastered, which may improve the sound. Iāll usually wait after a higher res version comes out to see if thereās any consensus on how it sounds. If it was captured one way and simply transcoded to a different form I tend to stick with it as captured. Depending on where you got this recording, if you can also download a 24/192 copy give it a try and see which one you like better.
Hmm, rereading what I wrote here, Iām not sure this is going to help you much. 
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That kind of does help.
That is where I am going here. It doesnāt make any sense in my mind that upsampling would make any difference in the original material. If it isnāt there on the recording, upsampling isnāt going to bring it there.
But, I am also completely uneducated here. The Stellar Strata was my first foray into streaming. And that made me upgrade to the Eversolo DMP-A6 so I could get access to these higher resolution files. AND I do hear a difference between a recording at 24bit/96kHz on Amazon and that same recording on Qobuz at 24bit/192kHz. Even through my little Elac UB52s. BUT, I was also assuming that that recording was captured at 24bit/192kHz. A dangerous thing in its own rightā¦to assume.
Iām excited to explore true DSD from Octave Records as they are actually recording in DSDā¦but, I have to wonder about what I am purchasing online from other companies if I can just take any old CD and rip it to DSDā¦
You are just making the files bigger. You will not hear any difference.
I have tested this myself. There is no advantage to ripping to DSF.
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In principle I agree. The weird thing is sometimes an upsampled (not remastered but simply upsampled) recording recording is preferred by some folks. Itās a little unpredictable.
The problem with Qobuz is itās virtually impossible to determine the provenance of their recordings. You could quite possibly be hearing two different recordings between Amazon and Qobuz.
There are other sites that provide reliable information about what they offer. NativeDSD, High Def Tape Transfer, there are others.
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I have a new theory on the brontosaurus, which is mine, and belongs to me, and it goes as follows:
streaming sounds great
CDs sound better
SACDs sound even better
- Anne Elk (miss)
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My brontosaurus as follows:
Totally fine with streaming as it offers the opportunity to hear an album without added cost.
In fact, many hi-res albums are available on streaming services, including albums from the āDSD labelsā, which, btw, does include albums from Ocative Records (OR).
I own CDs. I have ripped my CDs, but streaming is just way to convenient and the quality is good (enough).
I donāt do SACD. Just donāt have a player and not gonna invest in the hardware when the same budget money can be used for the music. Which, at the end of the day, is what, or at least, what this should be all aboutā¦
And so, when it comes to buying the music, and I think why there seems to be so many questions about this, is if we are willing to buy music, and even pay a higher price for, what should be, higher quality files, then, are we getting the most value for our money?
Most of us have a limited budget. Obviously, we want to maximize the benefits of spending our money and acquiring the music. And we are willing to ādrink the kool-aidā and buy higher, if there is a logical benefit that can be had with doing so, even if we, ourselves cannot hear it.
If the file is ājust an upsampleā, but does sound better, I would be willing to pay a little more for that file.
So, the rules of thumb regarding buying the music that I have gathered from my short time in these forums are:
- At least, buy the native resolution that the music was recorded or mastered at.
- If DSD (or similar) recorded/mastered, buy the maximum resolution that your DAC can play. I feel that this rule applies best for OR albums and albums recorded from an analog source.
- Buy max file resolution available, even if your current DAC does not cover it, for āfuture-proofingā, if the lower resolutions are also offered in the same maxed resolution package.
Anyway, my 0.02 cents (plus). I hope that I have made some sense.
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Not really my area, but interesting:
SACD has several copy protection features at the physical level, which made the digital content of SACD discs difficult to copy until the jailbreak of the PlayStation 3. The content may be copyable without SACD quality by resorting to the analog hole, or ripping the conventional 700 MB layer on hybrid discs. Copy protection schemes include physical pit modulation and 80-bit encryption of the audio data, with a key encoded on a special area of the disc that is only readable by a licensed SACD device. The HD layer of an SACD disc cannot be played back on computer CD/DVD drives, and SACDs can only be manufactured at the disc replication facilities in Shizuoka and Salzburg. However, PlayStation 3 with a SACD drive and appropriate firmware can use specialized software to extract a DSD copy of the HD stream.
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This is exactly what I was looking for, @mrcandude, though I have to also give a shout out to @terzinator for his concise method. @tony22 post was also very helpful.
We are in the same situation. I donāt own a SACD player and donāt see buying one as the prices seem quite high and I love the ability to explore new music via streaming.
So, I have a good game plan now of how to proceed and I will explore more DSD options from more some of the other sites posted in this thread, and of course, Octave Records, while paying attention to just how the recording was created and sticking to that level of resolution.
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Yes. Thank you.
And to everyone else. 
Hereās some interesting definitions:
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